Vending machines have been around for many years and been used for dispensing many types of goods and items. Generally, a consumer prepays with coins, bills and credit cards and receives their product. These prior art types of vending machines only sell and dispense the product and do not allow for returning the product packaging. Probably the most popular types of vending machines dispense beverages, such as soda and water in the like in aluminum cans and plastic bottles. While the beverage containers such as cans and bottles, may be recyclable. Current reverse vending machines use bar codes to verify the product which requires either exact placement of the article being returned or a mechanism to align the article with a bar code reader.
Still furthermore, current vending machines do not have the capability to refund any monies to the consumer. The consumer usually must recycle the used containers on their own, by depositing them in separate refuse holders that are labeled for recycling or placing the containers in separate recyclable bins for trash pickup.
Other types of goods have often used packaging material that is generally not easily recyclable. For example, bundles of loose goods, such as firewood, are often sold by wrapping the firewood in plastic wrapping. The plastic wrapping is often thrown away and often becomes loose trash. Many public parks are starting to ban the selling of plastic wrapped firewood as being a trash nuisance. Still furthermore, plastic wrapping material does not quickly decompose and often ends up in landfills, and the like, for many years.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems with the prior art.